Where our rights comes from
When I read that a Sheriff said he supports the citizens’ “rights given by the First and Second Amendments of the Constitution,” it made me realize there are some people, even in important positions, who don’t understand where our rights come from. The Constitution grants NO right to anyone to exercise free speech or to keep and bear arms. It merely protects us from the government abridging or infringing those rights, which we already possessed even before America became a nation. They are restrictions on government… not on us, the citizens.
The Declaration of Independence clearly states that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and that governments are instituted to secure these rights. This might seem a simple variation in the use of words, but it is much more than that. Because if it can be established that our rights to free speech and bearing arms (plus all other Bill of Rights provisions) come from law (the Constitution), then the converse is also true, the law can take those rights away. It cannot. They are unalienable, fundamental, natural, Constitutionally-protected, God-given rights, which apply to all men and can never be taken away by anyone, governments included. It’s important that everyone understands this clearly during the dialogue about gun control.
Captain James C Green, Heber City
Opinion
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